This Is What Happens When I Try To Do Stuff

I am now just 2 degrees away from Kevin Bacon. Would you like to know how?

Let me start by making a long story short:

Today, due to two nights of only sleeping for 3 hours, was the first morning I felt alive enough to get up early-early and work on the 1/10 of a novel I have started.

That's the shortened part.

This morning my alarm was set for 5:30 but Olive woke up at 5:15 screaming. I got her settled down and was walking back to my room as my alarm was going off. "Well that wasn't that bad. Let's do this thing." I flip on my bed side lamp, set up my headrest, my two pillows, pull out my lap top and settle in, open up my Word doc and..."WAAAAAAAAH!" Olive again. I attempt to work but a crying baby isn't really conducive to creating compelling characters. So I get up, change her diaper, get her a drink, put socks on her feet, rock her and get her down again. Then back to work. I settle in again, stare at my screen, trying to get into the zone. I take a deep breath and lay my head back on my headrest and what to do I see?

My 2 degrees from Kevin Bacon. Kevin Bacon was in the movie Tremors with this fellow:



That fellow was up on my ceiling. I jump out of bed because this guy's going to fall on my face any moment, I just know it. I run to the closet, grab one of my husband's size 12 1/2 shoes, thinking "Bigger really is better!" and I jump onto my bed and smash the shoe against the ceiling, hopefully squashing this thing in the process. I twist and smash. There's no way this thing is getting out alive. Since the shoe is so big, I can't really see if he's dead or alive, so cautiously, I take the shoe off the ceiling and inspect the damage. There are no bug guts on the ceiling. I check the bottom of Go's shoe. Clean as a whistle. GAHK! I jump around on the bed, ripping away the layers of head rest, pillows, blankets but no creature is to be found. I feel a slight tickle on my scalp. I bend over my bed hyperventilating and manically rake through my hair. Nothing. I feel something on my back. I arch back and hop around, wiggling all over, scratching on top of my clothes, then underneath my clothes. THIS THING IS ON ME! Nope. False alarm. I look around everywhere, behind the bed, behind my nightstand, under the bed. I have no idea where this guy went. I stand there and listen for the scurrying of a million creepy tiny feet but the silence is deafening. I decide not to let this ruin my potentially productive morning. It's time to get to work. I pile on headrest and pillows again. I nestle down in my bed. Laptop on my lap. I stare at my screen. "WAAAAAAAH!" Hello Olive. Ugh. I let her cry and stare at my screen. She continues crying and I decide to reread what I've written already. I do this for a couple of minutes put she's building in intensity, making it impossible to think at all and putting her sister's slumber at risk. I go in again and rock her until she's just about asleep, something I normally don't do but desperate times, desperate measures, people. I sneak out of her room. Ok, ready to write. Get into bed, laptop at the ready. Cursor blinking. I stare at my screen, conjuring something to come. All of a sudden, there's a tickle on my toe. I fly out of bed, yelping and throwing off the blankets. Again, nothing. This thing's inside my head now and I feel like there are bugs crawling all over me. NO! I will not let a silly bug, that yes, may look like an alien, ruin my productivity. I am up! There's still time! I need to write, dang it! I put back my blankets, get into bed, place my lap top on my lap with determination, look at my screen and type one word. The wrong word. Delete, delete. What word should I use? I look up, deep in thought and hello Tremor Worm. You are on the opposite wall now. And now you must die. How did he get over there so fast? There must be two. Maybe even little baby Tremor Monsters. Fantastic. I jump up again, grabbing one of my smaller shoes this time so I can witness his slow and hopefully agonizing death and right as I'm approaching him, coming in for the kill, he senses my thirst for weird-alien blood and drops from the wall and down behind the dresser where I can't get to him. CURSES!!! I throw the shoe down on the floor in frustration. "WAAAAAAH!" This child is going to be the death of me. And so is this alien bug. I grab Go's sound-eliminating head phones, the ones he wears on the airplane while I wrestle our kids, the ones that make me want to reach over the aisle and strangle him while saying "YOU'RE NOT HELPING ME!", the ones that when I look over at him and give him the look that says "I'm going to strangle you if you don't start helping me," he says really loudly over his music "I CAN DO WHATEVER YOU NEED ME TO DO WHILE I LISTEN TO MUSIC" and I shake my head at him, like "No you can't" and he smiles and nods his head like "Yes, I can" and puts out his hands like "I'll prove it. Give one of them to me," and I shake my head again, then mouth the words: "Watermelon, watermelon, watermelon" and he yells "WHAT?" and I mouth "Watermelon, watermelon, watermelon" again and he looks so confused as he takes out the ear buds and says in a normal register "What?" and I say "Exactly." So I grab those, shove them in my ears, get in my bed, get my lap top, and stare at my screen. I look at the clock. It's almost 7. I write one freaking paragraph and Ruby comes in, hungry for breakfast and of course she does because for some unknown reason she wakes up with a blood sugar in the 400's, which is sky high and not good. Sigh. At this rate, this thing won't get published until they make Tremors 9: The Return of the Great-Great-Great-Great-Great-Great-Great Grandchild of the Original Tremors Monster. And in the meantime, I will be wiggling and scratching at myself all day long because I swear this thing is still on me.